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Title: The Colonel
Author: Harry Graham [
More Titles by Graham]
Observe him, in the best armchair,
At ev'ry "Service" Club reclining!
How brightly through its close-cropped hair!
His polished skull is shining!
His form, inert and comatose,
Suggests a stertorous repose.
What strains are these that echo clear?
What music on our ears is falling?
Through his Æolian nose we hear
The distant East a-calling.
(A good example here is found
Of slumber that is truly "sound.")
He dreams of India's coral strand,
Where, camping by the Jimjam River,
He sacrificed his figure and
The best part of his liver,
And, in some fever-stricken hole,
Mislaid his pow'rs of self-control.
Blow lightly on his head, and note
Its surface change from chrome to hectic;
Examine that pneumatic throat,
That visage apoplectic.
His colour-scheme is of the type
That plums affect when over-ripe.
With rising gorge he stands erect,
Awakened by your indiscretion,
Becoming slowly Dunlop-necked--
(To coin a new expression);
Where stud and collar form a juncture,
You contemplate immediate puncture.
His head, like some inverted cup,
Ascends, a Phoenix, from its ashes;
His eyebrows rise and beckon up
His "porterhouse" moustaches;[A]
And you acknowledge, as you flinch,
That he's a Colonel--ev'ry inch!
The voice that once in strident tones
Across the barrack-square could carry,
Reverberates and megaphones
A rich vocabulary.
(His "rude forefathers," you'll agree,
Were never half so rude as he.)
As blatantly he catalogues
The grievances from which he suffers:--
"The Service gone, sir, to the dogs!"
"The men, sir, all damduffers!"
In so invet'rate a complainer
You recognise the "old champaigner."
His raven locks (just two or three)
Recall their retrospective splendour;
One of the brave Old Guard is he,
That dyes but won't surrender;
With fits of petulance afflicted,
When questioned, crossed, or contradicted.
But as, alas! from poor-man's gout,
Combined with chronic indigestion,
The breed is quickly dying out--
(The fact admits no question)--
I'll give you, if advice you're taking,
A recipe for Colonel-making.
Select some subaltern whose tone
Is bluff and anything but "soul-y;"
Transplant him to a torrid zone;
There leave him stewing slowly;
Remove his liver and his hair,
Then serve up hot in an armchair.
[Footnote A: Cf. "mutton-chop" whiskers.]
[The end]
Harry Graham's poem: Colonel
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